Sat around a lot this weekend due to being under the weather. Played a fair amount. I even played the Stars world record tourney. Sort of. I didn't last real long. AKo went down to ATo (aka the" nuts") - ATo called my shove. And then TT went down to ATo, again with the nuts calling my shove and getting there. Oh well.

Actually, whatever I didn't have was the nuts. It happens. Even when things looked to be going well - like when I was poised to pick off a shortstacker with 99 vs 93s. Wrong. Or when I turned a beautiful hidden straight only to have it get mowed down by the unlikely gutshot to a better straight hitting on the river. Standard stuff.

I need a nap.

Step 1: Get stuck. Stuff like this doesn't help:

Full Tilt Poker No Limit 100 Hold'em - 9 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG+2: 26.85
MP1: 49.30
MP2: 14.75
CO: 100.00
Hero (BTN): 120.40
SB: 20.50
BB: 18.90
UTG: 20.70
UTG+1: 54.80

Pre Flop: (1.50) Hero is BTN with 4 4

5 folds, CO raises to 3, Hero calls 3, 2 folds

Flop: (7.50) J 2 4 (2 players)

CO bets 5, Hero raises to 10, CO raises to 35, Hero calls 25

Turn: (77.50) 7 (2 players)

CO bets 62 all in, Hero calls 62

River: (201.50) T (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: 201.50

CO shows J Q (a flush, Queen high)

Hero shows 4 4 (three of a kind, Fours)

CO wins 198.50

(Rake: 3.00)

Step 2: Get all that cursing out of your system. Keep playing.

Step 3: Find yourself in a position like this. Note the xpert donk bet on the turn to control pot size. Know your opponents people!

Full Tilt Poker No Limit 100 Hold'em - 9 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: 112.95
Hero (BB): 151.50
UTG: 100.00
UTG+1: 17.50
UTG+2: 23.65
MP1: 23.55
MP2: 18.50
CO: 75.60
BTN: 129.05

Pre Flop: (1.50) Hero is BB with 7 6

5 folds, CO calls $1, 1 fold, SB calls $0.50, Hero checks

Flop: (3.00) 2 3 J (3 players)

SB checks, Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: (3.00) 4 (3 players)

SB checks, Hero bets 1, CO calls 1, SB folds

River: (5.00) 5 (2 players)

STEP 4: THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP: INSTA SNAP PUSH OVERBET FOR VALUE !!!1111! THE POT IS AT 5 !

Hero bets 149.50 all in, CO calls 73.60 all in

Final Pot: 152.20

Hero shows 7 6 (a straight, Seven high)

CO mucks A 6

Step 5: ???

Step 6: Oh wait we already did profit.

* in fairness, this didn't quite get me unstuck but the day's net was a super nominal loss.

{Insert link to fake blog here. I'm going to be rich!}

Maybe not so much. Still, if quantity ever equals quality I'm on a roll.

Poker is kind of going the same way. I've been spending a lot of time playing this month - to the point where I may actually (in my mind anyway) make Iron Man for the first time (!). If I played for real I would have racked up over 1k Full Tilt Points on Saturday, also a first.

I enjoyed a wondrous overbet-for-value during last night's session. I sucked out the nut flush on the river, INSTA pushed and got the Tiger-Woods-fist-pump-SNAP CALL-wait-WAT-FML. I forget exactly what the stack-to-pot ratio was but it was definitely an OBFV.

Got called a fish for that one. Technically, it was more of a donkey move, but I can't really disagree. There are times that bad play is profitable.


Still under rolled. Still not very good. Always worried about the doomswitch.

None of those will probably ever change, new year's resolutions notwithstanding.


You know, this really is the best time of year to play. The weather sucks. There's nothing on TV. You have a couple days off from work. The sites like to jazz up the holidays a bit. Full Tilt is running 3x points during happy hour. Santa Claus will be visiting the tables on Stars. I'm sure other sites do stuff too. It's all good.

It may not be the bonanza of the past but it's still free loot so get out there and play. If you want to, that is.

Full Tilt Poker No Limit Hold'em 100- 8 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

CO: 20.20
BTN: 34.40
SB: 19.00
BB: 25.50
UTG: 102.75
Hero (UTG+1): 133.10
MP1: 80.30
MP2: 53.10

Pre Flop: (1.50) Hero is UTG+1 with A A

1 fold, Hero raises to 3.50, 3 folds, BTN calls 3.50, 2 folds

Flop: (8.50) J 4 7 (2 players)

Hero bets 6, BTN raises to 18, Hero raises to 62.50, BTN requests TIME, BTN calls 12.90 all in

BTN shows 9 T
Turn: (70.30) Q (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: (70.30) K (2 players - 1 is all in)

The game: NL100 full ring. The usual collection of shortstackers plus a big stack on my left.

Hero (100) has Ts9d on the button.
SB (170)
BB (50)

Folds to Hero. Hero donkraises to $3. SB flat calls. BB folds. Pot $7

Flop Ah 9h 9s.

SB checks. Hero bets $5. SB calls.

Turn 3s

SB leads for $4...

How badly can Hero fuxxor this up?

WTF is SB doing?

Comments appreciated.

you might want to re-think a few things:

On Sunday, December 27 at 14:45 ET, PokerStars will try to break that record with a $300,000 guaranteed, $1 buy-in tournament. If you don't have a buck in your account, PokerStars is also offering satellite qualifiers.

Either that or you're from the USA. Woo freedom.

I could not get motivated to do anything last night, so I played a lengthy session. For quite a while it was profitable. I got cards, hit flops like they were going out of style and got folds when I needed them. And then it happened:

I met a fish. A real, flopping, mouth-breathing, fully retarded fish.

It should have been awesome. It's not every day that you'll find an opponent at 100NL that will call a raise with any two cards. I know it's common to see this sort of thing live, but I don't remember seeing it much above the 0.01/0.02 level online since the days of Party Poker.

It wasn't awesome.

If I were at home I'd dig out some of the hand histories. I remember losing one hand where I flopped a straight and improved to a flush, villain went I believe runner-runner for a full house. After calling a raise with 85o. For the longest time the fish hit everything he looked at, it was uncanny. 85 was the mortal nuts on several hands.

The better part of a full buyin found its way out of my stack for later redistribution. That kind of sucked.

I did get a fair amount of my money back in the end - not all of it from him. In one of the funniest moments of the evening a fresh short stack sat down with his 20 and got a hand in the big blind. I turned the nut flush and instapushed for like 150 into a 3 dollar play chip pot. Snap call. Oops, no outs. It's been a while since an overbet for value worked so beautifully.

I guess you had to be there or be me or something. Let's just say that I enjoyed it.

Poker is a game of skill, blah blah blah. I'm familiar with the arguments. You're familiar with the arguments. It really is different than pure gambling.

But even the most hardcore poker advocate has to admit that - especially in the short run - luck does play a role in poker. When the universe is reduced to the results of a single player over a single session luck is a pretty big deal. You have to be a little lucky to get action. You have to be a little lucky to have your favorites hold. You might not have to be a little lucky to win but it sure helps.

I haven't felt particularly lucky at the virtual tables in years now. Some time in late 2005 or 2006 - I forget which but I want to say '06 - any luck I had completely evaporated. I remember it well as I went to the WPBT Winter Classic already on a downswing and just got obliterated. By everything. Small potatoes in the grand scheme of things but when it's loss after loss it gets to you. Since coming back to the virtual tables I had some decent runs but never really felt the love. And by love I mean luck.

I've gotten tired of being an anti-luckbox.

I know that I use this space too often to bitch about bad beats. I'm sure that I owe each of my readers dozens of dollars for being subjected to the stories. I hope y'all take Sklansky bucks. I don't always play well. Hell, I often play downright bad. But still, I contend that I've also been unlucky.

Since the really obnoxious last hand two outer I mentioned below, things have started to look up. I haven't had a losing session of any significance. I've had a few modest wins. And on Tuesday I actually felt lucky. Lucky! Winner. I've recovered from the annoying beat and ground out a few extra play chips on top. Life is good.

I'm not ready to call it a full reversal of fortune yet, but I'm hopeful. It's time for the funk to lift. Let's do work. Let's get lucky.

***

On a semi-related note, holy cow is shortstacking out of control. It's not at all unusual for there to be at least 4 shortstackers on a single table of NL100 and one table I had open on Tuesday had SIX. Three players (including myself) bought in for 100 play chips, six players were in for 20.

I don't really care all that much if people want to shortstack, it just requires you to pay a bit more attention when you're taking a line with a hand preflop. Plus a lot of these guys mass multitable and have a very small assortment of moves. I picked off a couple yesterday who 3 bet shoved from the big blind with such epic hands as A2o and Q5o. You will get sucked out on - I had AA snapped off by J9s for one - but it's definitely possible to get it in good and win 1/5th of a stack at a time.

Full Tilt seems to have lots of shortstackers from Russia and the Ukraine - what are they, the opposite of Scandidonks?

Do you suppose shortstackers only have 1/5 of a soul?


Yes, I know that I've probably just activated the doomswitch. Consider that chance taken. Run good ... please?

Let's see. Over the last several days I played poker, drank some greyhounds, partied, chatted with some friends, played some Paigow, railed the Winter Classic, lost money on sporting events, did some fine dining ...

all without leaving town. And you know what, it wasn't bad. No, it wasn't as much fun as going to Las Vegas, but it was a decent weekend.

The "festivities" kicked off with an appearance in the Mookie. It wasn't memorable. I got one big hand, KK, and promptly stacked off to Jordan's AA on a jack high flop. Standard.

I signed up for Twitter and really enjoyed reading all the tweets (#wpbt). The next best thing to being there. Congratulations to Astin on his tournament win. Hopefully there will also be trip reports.

And ...since it's Monday and I'm having trouble forming a coherent sentence I'm going to stop here.

As part of an ongoing effort to fend off a bad case of the not going to Vegas blues I've been reading back through the archives. Mine and others. It's been an enjoyable trip and really it's interesting how many lives are so completely different than they were five years ago.

It's also been a pleasant experience because - honestly - the writing is in many cases richer. There was much more enthusiasm as poker fatigue hadn't set in. The guts of the blogosphere hadn't yet been ripped out by Twitter.

That isn't, by the way, intended to be a criticism of anybody. It's just the way it looks to me - someone whose posts were Twitter length before there was a Twitter. But I digress.


One of the ways I've always prepared for trips to Las Vegas is by reading trip reports. Mine, from previous trips. Those written by others. Classics, such as those from the TiltBoys and the Cheapo Vegas crew, as well as up to date reports from the various Vegas-centric forums scattered about on the net.

This time around, I haven't been focused on trip reports, since, well, I'm not going anywhere. Instead, I've just been moseying around in the past where anything could and did happen.

It did occur to me today, though, that if I get too bluesy I could always dust off my old reports which - written for a different audience as they were - I don't think I ever posted here. They're not exactly literature, but they are better written than most everything put up in this space and I think they contain a chuckle or two and maybe a pro tip here and there.


A tip of the cap to Al Can't Hang for mentioning an invaluable service provided by the lovely Gracie: A collection of various WPBT-related Twitter feeds. So instead of having to figure out Twitter to follow the action all you have to do is load up this webpage. Thanks!


Random NL100 observation: Holy crap there are a lot of shortstackers.


Poker observation: FFFFFUUUUUU Full Tilt RNG.

Ready to sign off with a losing night. All tables closed but one. Literally the last hand of the evening. I flop trip 8s with A8, grossly checkraise all in, get snap called by KK, standard K on turn. A on river to add insult to annoyance.

That's the kind of thing turns a bad night into a BAD night. And undoes a lot of good work.

Sigh.

Playing NL100. Losing.

Get AA for the first time about two and a half hours in.

Things go nuts.

Four way all in preflop.

AA > KK > JJ > T9o

Giant exhale.

Life good.

Winding down with a little PLO

Make quads on back-to-back hands

BEAT: 0.01/0.02 PLO

Still cool.

And yes, I *did* buy a lotto ticket this evening.

One time?

Here's a pro tip for you: Never do something so stupid as to say "I'm going to keep on playing until I flop at least ONE set tonight".

I speak from experience. I did that yesterday, and was well into my third hour of three or four tabling before I got one. Which of course won me virtually nothing. It was a relief, though, to know that I could go to bed without karmic repercussions.

It's been an odd week. I've played more in one week than I have in the last four months combined, and it's been ... fun? I've been playing garden variety NLHE cash games and it's been ... fun?



It definitely helps when the sessions are winners.

You have to love the Full Tilt RNG. After exercising great patience - and being down close to a buyin due to periodic hosings - it finally came through for me:

I picked up AA in UTG+1 position. I make a puny raise, it folds around and I pick up the blinds. Hey, this is exactly what happened a couple orbits earlier when I had KK. Nice table.

Next hand: AA again. UTG. Fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold ... re-raise? WOOT. A brand new player sat down and on his big blind 3 bet me. I couldn't make it four fast enough. He check-raised me all in on a jack high flop and .... I couldn't watch.

Wait, wait, whew.

QQ NO GOOD.

I had back to back aces in a live charity game earlier this year, but I don't remember getting them online before. Pretty cool, although I would have been rather irked if I'd gotten no action on either.

Anyhow, I'll probably be back at it tonight. Don't forget the WPBT warm up tournament, visit Bam Bam for all the details.

Somehow five plus years and a thousand posts have come and gone in this space. I’ll give you that there have been substantially less than a thousand quality posts, but in the internet age quantity alone usually is considered meaningful. So w00t and all that.

I’ve been sitting on this post for a while, trying to think what I should write. I’ve kept my expectations in check – I have neither the inclination nor the ability (nor the time for that matter) to write artful prose. There will be no incredible insights into the game. All I have, I think, is a few random thoughts on various subjects. So it true Res Ipsa Poker (boom self-linkage) fashion I’m gonna just throw them against the wall and see what sticks.

Read on … or not.

Poker

Has it really been more than six years since a fat accountant from Tennessee won the World Series of Poker and launched the great boom? It hardly seems possible, but it's true.

I don't have the level of infatuation with the game I once did. I no longer play multiple times per week. I doubt that I've played more than a dozen tournaments this year. I haven't gone and played live in months. I don't blog. Take all that and add a big BUT: But, I still enjoy the game. I even still enjoy throwing up the occasional post when I have something quasi poker-related to say. Five years on and I'm still paying at least some attention, which is more than you can say for most of my other dalliances. Okay, make that "any" instead of "most". Long term commitment is not a strong suit.

This week has actually been pretty pokeriffic. I moved my computer around the other day and have been getting a bit better signal. I've been haunting the 100NL (play chip of course) tables at Full Tilt instead of playing PLO and I've even had a couple small wins since the monkey tilt incident...

Speaking of which, there are a couple of things that I have noticed about my play. For one, I’m more prone than ever to immediate and completely insane monkey tilt when I take a bad beat. The last time I played prior to this week produced the most recent post on this blog – a standard rant after I trapped a guy overplaying AKo on an ace-high flop and he went runner-runner Kings for the bigger full house. Your standard 3.5% dog coming through. The beat itself didn’t cause all that much damage – the villain had less than a half stack. But it was enough to set me off and I dumped a full buy in before I came to my senses.

There is also one more thing I've noticed: I pretty now always expect to get screwed by the RNG. I got it in good the night before last with an over pair against TPTK and was shocked – shocked! – that it held. There was some serious anticipatory cringing going on.

Still, I play.

I also read when I get the chance. The local library recently acquired Doyle Brunson’s autobiography and waiting to be read is a copy of Jim McManus’ book on the history of poker, Cowboys Full. The Brunson book was an easy breezy read. I was kind of amused that quite a few of the stories have been borrowed and retold in various Las Vegas-themed fiction that I've read. Stories about prop bets are just too interesting, I guess.

The Future

I would love to know what the poker world would be like right now if the UIGEA had never happened. Would there still be bonus whores? Would the player pool be bigger than it is? Would everybody have moved on to something else?

Regardless, the future of poker will be interesting. It seems like politicians are finally starting to wise up and recognize that regulating and taxing online gaming, especially poker, is one of the great untapped revenue sources available to them in these difficult economic times – and it might not be the kiss of political death to support doing so.

I think we’ll see regulated and taxed online poker within the next five years, and – here’s the rub – this will kill a lot of the interest in the game. It’s hard enough to beat the rake as it is for most players, and once the government gets its fingers into the pies it will only be harder. There will probably be absurd compliance requirements added to the mix (“everybody gets a 1099”?) which will layer on costs and hassles. For quite a few players, it won't be worth it and they'll move on to other things. There isn’t much of an untapped market left waiting to discover poker, either -- at least in the United States -- so any growth is going to have to come from elsewhere.

One thing we won’t see is a lot of liberalization in the online payment area. It’s possible that some providers like paypal might get the ok to deal with poker sites, but the allowed amounts will be laughably small. Too much fear of money laundering, financing terrorism, whatever.

The WPBT

The end of next week is the annual winter gathering of bloggers in Las Vegas. I won’t be there (one of many reasons why 2009 has sucked donkey balls), but I will be looking forward to reading about the festivities. Just reading the pre-gathering posts is enough to get jacked up and some of the links to old posts have been a great trip down memory lane.

Okay, remembering things like the nine-high Paigow I got at the end of a brutal run at the IP last winter isn't so pleasant, but 99% of the memories are positive. If you go it's almost impossible not to have fun.

And what a great move by PokerStars to throw in some additional cash to fund a team side bet prize pool. Stars (and Full Tilt and Bodog) is a true friend to the bloggers and I hope they've gotten a fair return for their support.

Have fun everybody!


On a WPBT-related note, IIRC Bam Bam has organized an online “warm up” tournament, this Friday night on Full Tilt. I think it’s at 10:00 pm eastern and is HORSE, but you can check his blog for details. It's been a while since I've played a bloggament and I'm going to try and make it out for this one.

Well, I just checked (yes, I admit it) and I've gone over the 1,000 word mark, which makes this the equivalent of like four or ten or something of my usual blog posts. All I don't have to wrap this up is a cartoon, but that muse has been on vacation since way back.

Hmm.

Anyway.

One last thought.

I'm pretty sure at this point that I'll never play in the World Series of Poker, but I have this idea which might get me out to Las Vegas about that time of year and which might even pay for the trip. Here's the concept drawing: